80,000 Hours - Narrations

Working in a think tank for a few years early in your career is a plausible way to influence government policy for the better, and in the meantime gain... Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:09) Summary (00:40) Pros (01:03) Cons (01:31) Key facts on fit (01:47) Next steps (02:37) Get free, one-on-one career advice (02:55) Recommended (03:04) Review status (03:09) Research process (03:23) What is a ca...

This page is no longer kept up to date and we may no longer agree with all of the recommendations. On this page, we list some of the best sources of careers advice and information we've found elsewhere. Basic information on specific career paths Occupational Outlook Handbook from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics The online BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook has profiles on many broad categories o...

Spending a few years doing marketing in the private sector can teach you highly generalizable skills that can later be used in a wide range of industries and causes. You should consider marketing if you have good social and verbal skills, want a decent work life balance and want to keep your options open across causes. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:10) Summary (00:32) Pros (00:59) Cons (01:16)...

People often talk about how you should just go with your gut instinct when choosing a career. But how useful is this advice, really? Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (02:15) Why you should be wary of gut judgements in career choice (05:15) When might intuitions be useful in career choice? (07:27) Other potential benefits of unconscious reasoning (08:26) Read next The original text contained 1 footnote...

Thinking of pursuing a computer science PhD? Read this first to find out whether you should (or shouldn’t). Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:09) Summary (00:40) Pros (01:07) Cons (01:35) Key facts on fit (01:49) Next steps (02:03) Sometimes recommended (02:13) Review status (02:18) Research process (02:33) What is this career path? (03:20) Why do a computer science PhD? (03:25) You learn cutting e...

An econ PhD is one of the most attractive graduate programs: if you get through, you have a high chance of landing a good research job in academia or... Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:09) Summary (00:52) Pros (01:33) Cons (01:48) Key facts on fit (02:00) Next steps (02:23) Get free, one-on-one career advice (02:45) Review status (02:50) Research process (03:02) What is this career path? (03:47)...

Data science jobs involve obtaining data, cleaning it, analysing it and communicating actionable insights to decision makers in organisations. The title ‘Data scientist’ is used for a wide range of jobs, which range from entry-level positions only requiring basic knowledge of databases and Excel, all the way to high-level roles which involve inventing new algorithms, working with very large data s...

Consulting is a promising path, offering good career capital that keeps your options open and your earnings high. However, it’s highly competitive and we have a limited understanding of its potential for direct impact. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:47) Pros (00:55) Cons (01:03) Key facts on fit (01:18) Next steps (01:35) Sometimes recommended (01:45) Review status (02:05) What is this career pa...

So many people are clearly desperate to plan out the next decade of their career, ending up anxious and overwhelmed. But this isn't the best way to approach Narrated by AI. The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: December 12th, 2014 Source: https://80000hours.org/articles/stop-worrying-so-much-about-the-long-term --- Narrated by TYPE III...

We tend to imagine that organised attempts to make the world a better place are almost always successful, at least to some extent. However, this is simply not the case. GiveWell surveyed the literature on the effects of social interventions, concluding: We think that charities can easily fail to have impact, even when they're doing exactly what they say they are. In fact, our review of academic re...

When people think about the impact of their actions, they tend to think only of the immediate results - what we call their tangible impact. But that is only part of the story. To get the full picture, you need to compare the world you bring about with the world as it would have been without your involvement. We call this your true impact. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (02:11) Replaceability and Dim...

Some of the steps you could take in your career open up a greater range of career options than others. The more paths a steps opens up, and the better these paths are in terms of impact, the more it "keeps your options open". For example, an undergraduate degree opens up a wide range of jobs: it is essential for around 25% of jobs, and an advantage in a huge number of others. By contrast, many voc...

On this page we outline why we use a framework and how we selected the factors to go in our framework. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:25) Why use a framework at all? (01:14) How did we choose these factors? (01:18) What makes one factor better than another? (03:02) How can we work out which factors are most important? (03:46) What process did we use to create the current framework? (05:05) Which...

Here we list some of our most in-depth career research reports that have not been featured on other pages. Narrated by AI. --- First published: October 4th, 2014 Source: https://80000hours.org/articles/research-reports --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .

If you're already familiar with our framework, and want to apply it to compare several options within our how to choose process, you can use this worksheet, which collates all the key information onto one page. Comparison table We've made a table you can use to score each of your options. See a filled in example here. We've provided space for you to add your own factors, since our framework doesn'...

Note this article was written in 2014 and doesn't fully reflect our views today. What are 'yardsticks', and why use them? In order to compare causes, we want to estimate the value of solving different social problems. The problem is, even if we had a precise notion of what counts as 'value' (for instance, the amount of human welfare created), it's not practical to estimate the effect of solving di...

Finding a career that’s the right fit for you is important, but it’s also difficult to do just by thinking about it. It can therefore be a good strategy to try out a number of different areas in order to learn more about your own interests and skills. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:40) What's our evidence this strategy is promising? (01:17) Which options are best within this strategy? --- First...

What do we mean by this strategy? Enter careers that enable you to build a package of generally valuable skills, connections and credentials - ‘career capital’. What’s our evidence this strategy is promising? At the start of their careers, most people can significantly boost their abilities to make a difference over the rest of their careers by first investing in themselves. Narrated by AI. --- Ou...

If you’ve got potential as an entrepreneur, attempt to found new effective non-profit organisations or innovative for-profits that benefit their customers and create positive externalities. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:22) Why is this strategy promising? (01:30) Which options are best within this strategy? --- First published: September 24th, 2014 Source: https://80000hours.org/articles/entrep...

There are many nonprofit and for-profit organisations that have a large impact, which are short of specific types of human capital. If you’re a good fit for a high-impact organization, it’s an option worth considering. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:32) What's our evidence this strategy is promising? (01:30) Which options are best within this strategy? --- First published: September 24th, 2014 S...

A list of the best advice we've found on how to assess your career options in the face of high uncertainty. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:37) Before you start (00:55) When assessing each criterion (02:04) When combining the factors (02:54) When making your final assessment --- First published: August 17th, 2014 Last updated: August 29th, 2014 Source: https://80000hours.org/articles/making-an-as...

Note that this page has been superseded by our problem profile about promoting effective altruism. What is this cause? Promoting effective altruism means activities which expand the capabilities of those trying to do good in a cause-neutral, evidence-based and outcome-orientated way. Interventions within this area include advocacy of key ideas in effective altruism and network-building. Narrated b...

This page has been replaced with our profile on Improving institutional decision-making. Narrated by AI. --- First published: August 28th, 2014 Source: https://80000hours.org/articles/improving-decision-making --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .

Since publishing this profile, there has been further research on this cause. See our newer profile of the area. What is this cause? Global priorities research is activity aimed at working out which causes, interventions, organisations, policies, etc. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:17) What is this cause? (01:13) Why do we think it's high-priority? --- First published: August 28th, 2014 Source:...

The full results of our literature survey into how to predict job satisfaction. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:21) Research process (01:11) How robust are these findings? (01:42) Predictors of job satisfaction (03:21) 1. Engaging work (07:16) 2. Work that helps others (10:12) 3. Work you're good at (11:10) 4. Work with people you like (12:35) 5. Meets your basic needs (15:27) Other factors we co...